Tuesday, 21 July 2015

Roma

I booked the trip to Rome the day before yesterday - whoopee, we're off.

Here's a word of warning about using booking agencies for hotels. Being a bunch of bastards, they are trying to exploit various financial crisis in the Euro-zone by block-booking hotel rooms and forcing massive discounts from the owners so that they can offer a discount to the customer and still make money. Greece is the prime target right now, for obvious reasons.

When we went to the hotel we stayed in last time we were in Rome, the agency said that 'no rooms were available' for the dates we needed. We went straight to the hotel itself, and - blow me - yes they were available.

What the agency should have said was that they had no rooms to offer themselves for that hotel, because the hotel had obviously refused to go along with the unreasonable discounting demands.

Ok, you may pay more if you go straight to the hotel to book, but at least the place will still be open when you want to go back next.

The person who answered my email this morning was called, 'Yuri', so I am guessing that he may not be Italian, but just someone from a different currency zone, trying to earn Euros.

Someone said to me last night that I may find myself looking at and assessing stone-work (again) when in Rome, and I said that it is impossible not to, despite that about 50% of it is below the surface.

What is above the surface is mind-blowingly staggering as well - never mind the Colosseum, Caesar's palace (not the one in L.A. - the original) is a 2000 year-old high-rise built before the advent of Portland cement. Not only that, but it goes down almost as much as it goes up.

Lucky you Tom - i adore Rome and could wander round the ruins (and those wonderful shops full of designer goods) for ever. We always stayed in the same hotel and booked direct - can't for the life of me remember what it was called but then it is twenty odd years since I was there.